Harry Potter, the Bum Who Lived
by Tea and Crumpets
Summary: Years after the defeat of Voldemort, one reporter goes to find the inside story of what became of Harry Potter. It ain't pretty.


I stepped out the back door of the Leaky Cauldron. Counting the bricks up and across until I found the one that needed coaxing with the wand. Stepping through the archway that quickly appeared, I walked out onto the cruel, unforgiving streets of Diagon Alley. It was a cold, rainy day. Cold and rainy enough to make even the hardiest of wizards become chilly and wet. Go figure.

The cobbled pavements running up and down the streets were entirely deserted on a day such as this. Perfectly suited to the atmosphere of my intended objective. Ignoring the frigidness of the air, I turned down the no-name offshoot of the shopping complex that had been indicated to me by my informant. An alley of Diagon Alley. Wondering how I would recognize my target, I continued forward as the streets became increasingly littered with rubbish and long un-serviced dustbins. At the end of the alley I came across a miserable pile of human flesh topped with a mop of scraggly black hair that could hardly be distinguished from the garbage surrounding it. I nudged him with the toe of my boot tentatively to verify it's momentary consciousness.

"Wffyagawan'?" Said the heap.

"Are you him?"

Extricating a lump of newspaper from his oral cavity, he responded,

"Yeah. You're the third one this week, so let's make this quick."

"Got the proof?"

The now stirring form pushed back some of its hair to reveal a faint, lighting shaped pattern on its forehead.

"Great. You might want to be awake for the questions. I'm sure my employers at the Daily Prophet might prefer it that way."

One bloodshot, red rimmed, blackened eye inched its way open. This caused the layer of filth surrounding said optical orb to crack and begin to flake off in unsightly chunks. Slowly the mangled heap inched its way up the filthy wall into a sitting position. It then spent a goodly amount of time attempting to open the opposite eye. This proved to be a lengthy and complicated process. In fact, it wasn't until one blackened hand reached under the filthy strips of cloth it was wearing and took a long pull from a bottle marked with a skull and crossbones that it was able to accomplish this feat at all. After another long pull it coughed and managed a grimace.

"All right. Ask your damn questions and then please leave me to my squalor. You're going to drive my property values down." He half grinned, showing blackened and decaying teeth.

I took out my notebook and busied myself with the questions I'd already memorized. Now that it came to it, what to ask? What could one Daily Prophet reporter ask of the Boy-Who-Lived when he was confronted with the Bum-Who-Lived? I took a breath and steeled myself to begin.

"Mr. Potter, I am Biggins Snelgrove, of the Daily Prophet. The entire wizarding world knows, of course, about your triumphant defeat of You-Know-Who. What they want to be told at this point and time is, er, where are you now?" There was now an awkward pause as I hesitated with my next question. "So, um…where _are_ you now?"

"I would have thought that would have been made _painfully_ obvious already. Does it look like I'm sitting in the lap of luxury to you?"

"Well…no."

"Brilliant! Give the boy a goddamn biscuit!"

"But what I'd like to know, Mr. Potter, is _why_ you're living the way you are. I certainly wouldn't think you've adopted this lifestyle by choice."

"Two biscuits in one day! You're on a bloody roll!"

Thinking of no appropriate response, I decided that the best option was to remain silent.

"So you want the straight story, do you? I guess you asked for it."

He got to his feet and approached a derelict bin whose contents were smoldering softly in the background. Warming his hands over the blaze, he took this opportunity to light a hand rolled cigarette he had produced from his pocket.

"Well, after the big V went down it was all a bed of roses for a while. Couldn't ask for more. But then…the fame started to wear off. Now that Voldemort was taken care of my job was done, everybody just kind of forgot about the whole thing. Too many painful memories, I guess. But I was one of the things that was easily forgotten. Maybe that's why I lost Ginny. I still had my fortune, of course, at least until Ginny took it all and left me. They're still looking for her, you know. Or they were. My guess is she's fled to Ecuador. Well, I was already into all the fanciest living then, so lack of money pretty much left me high and dry. Nobody thought twice about evicting a washed up has-been. Couldn't get a job anywhere, it was like I didn't even exist. And so here I am." He took a puff of finality on the cigarette.

"I see. How exactly did things with your other friends turn out in the aftermath?"

He snorted. "Hermione just couldn't recover from the strain. She always was a nervous little thing. Dealing with Voldie finally drove her off the deep end. Ron tried to deal with her for a while – hell, even married her – but eventually he was leaning on the bottle to cope. I think they just grew another liver for him at St. Mungo's a few weeks ago. Hermione, for reasons we probably shall never know, wandered into some Muggle family's house and stuck her head in their gas oven. She always did have a thing for Sylvia Plath." He paused to take a long drag of his cigarette. "So anyway, it's just been easier in this little alley. No one leans on me for their bloody emotional stability or looks at me with those big reproachful eyes when I can't fix everything."

"Ah. So do you – do you have any friends with whom you still associate?"

The living legend before me looked at me with bleary, surprised eyes. To this day I really don't know how he managed to look both bleary and surprised, but I suppose that when you're one of the most powerful wizards of this or any other age you can do whatever you want.

"Well yeah. Sirius and I still hang out all the time. In fact, he's my roommate. We're going out to the dust bin near Knockturn Alley later tonight for dinner."

I must have looked confused by this statement, because he immediately clarified his words for me.

"You know, my Godfather? Sirius Black?"

"Um, Mr. Potter…Sirius Black died 3 years before You-Know-Who's defeat. It's on record at the ministry."

This provoked the first emotional reaction from him that I witnessed from him. His overgrown eyebrows drew together, his bleary/surprised/bloodshot eyes flashed, and he snarled at me.

"Stop saying that! Everyone always says that! They're _wrong, _do you hear me! Wrong!" He whipped around angrily and dug his arm into the dustbin. A moment later he emerged with a struggling black handful of matted fur.

"Squeak!" It squeaked.

"Yeah, you tell him, Sirius!"

"Mr. Potter…that's a rat."

"No! A hamster you fool!"

"Mr. Potter, no matter what variety of rodent that is, I believe that Sirius Black was a human…"

"Yeah, he used to be. Until he fell into that death portal. I finally figured out how its works, see. His soul was just floating around out there, and then at some point it passed into this here hamster! That's how I _know_ this is him! He can only talk to me, the human who was closest to him in life."

Stares were exchanged.

" I believe that concludes our interview, Mr. Potter. Good day."

"Aaaand…CUT!"

A man stepped from behind the light receptacle that fed into the archives of the Magical Broadcast Network.

"Was that last take to your satisfaction, Mr. Potter ?"

"It certainly was! I almost convinced myself that I was a bum. That should keep some of the public off my back for a while."

Meanwhile an MBN tech-wizard filed the footage collected into the "VH1: Behind the Magic" cabinet with a label that read "HP Special"

The disheveled homeless person stepped threw off his rags and stepped briskly into some fine robes held out to him by a waiting attendant. The ridiculous wig was similarly discarded.

"Bring someone over her to get rid of this makeup, I have an appointment at six." The star-in-hiding said.

"Why certainly, Mr. Potter. The footage will be aired this Wednesday as you requested."

"I _knew_ it was a good decision to save that executive's family from the Death Eaters. Oh, here she comes."

"Potty-pie!" Yelled Ginny as she leapt into Harry's arms.

"Haven't I told you to stop calling me that?"

"Oh, I'm just messing with you, Harry."

" Are Ron and Hermione still coming over for dinner?"

"Yes. I don't envy you. I can't imagine that Hermione will take the news that she has to pretend to be dead all too well."

"Somehow I don't think she'll mind. Come on, Sirius."

Harry placed the pint sized mammal into the breast pocket of his robes.

"I still can't believe you wrangled that thing out of the Department of Mysteries."

"Yeah. However it wasn't too hard to convince them that they're zany 'soul replacement' theory was bogus. Even if it _was_ correct."

"I must say, I certainly didn't fancy having to hide out in that trash can for twenty minutes. I'm going to need a good scrubbing when I get home." Proclaimed the ebony rodent loudly.

"It shouldn't be too hard as long as you've got that with you." Said Ginny, gesticulating to the tiny, custom made wand clenched in the hamster's forepaw.

"Well, I'll see you three later. Fred says we've got a meeting with the execs at Zonko's. Something about a merger…" I said before leaving for the headquarters of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"Thanks a million Geor-_Biggins_, ahem."

"Anytime, Harry." We all apparated out of the Alley shortly after. I'd meet up with Harry again later, but for now I had business to attend.


End file.
